smooth and still in the late afternoon, with no waves at all, only a gentle, whispering swaying to and fro, they would go further afield; climbing up the steep stone-paved mule-tracks that wound up the hills behind, passing between grey olive groves and lemon and orange gardens and vineyards of ripening vines and little rough white farmhouses, till they reached the barer, wilder hill slopes of pines and rocks, where the hot sweetness of myrtle and juniper stirred with each tiny moving of sea air. They would climb often to the top of one or other of this row of hills that guarded the bay, and from its top, resting by some old pulley well or little shrine, they would look down over hills and sea bathed in evening light, and see to the east the white gleam of Genoa shimmering like a pearl, like a ghost, between transparent sea and sky, to the west the point of Savona jutting dark against a flood of fire. There was one hill they often climbed, a steep little pine-grown mountain crested by a little old chapel, with a well by its side. The chapel was dedicated to the Madonna della Mare, and was hung about inside with votive offerings of little ships, presented to the Madonna by grateful sailors whom she had delivered from the perils of the sea. Outside the chapel a shrine stood, painted pink, and from it the mother and child smiled kindly down on the withered flowers that nearly always lay on the ledge before them. By the shrine and the well Chester and Kitty would sit, while the low light died slowly from the hills, till its lower slopes lay in evening shadow, and only they on the summit remained, as if en-chanted, in a circle of fairy gold. One evening while they sat there a half-witted contadino slouched out of the chapel and begged from them. Chester refused sharply, and turned his face away. The imbecile hung about, mouthed a confused prayer, bowing and crossing, before the shrine, got no help from that quarter either, and at last shambled disconsolately down the hillside, crooning an unintelligible song to himself. Kitty, looking at Chester, saw with surprise that his face was rigid with disgust; he looked as if he were trying not to shudder. "How you hate them, Nicky," she said curiously. He said "I do," grimly, and spoke of something else. But a little later he said abruptly, "I've never told you much about my people, Kitty, have I, or what are called my early years?" "You wouldn't, of course," she replied, "any more than I should. We're neither of us much interested in the past; you live in the future, and I live in the present moment.... But I should be interested to hear, all the same."